Kevorkian Death Cycle
Dark Skies (Metropolis)
by Chris Best
This band is pretty good genre music. A bit harsher than the rest, but that’s a good thing. If you like Southern California industrial, you know what Kevorkian Death Cycle is all about.
Not to be a dick, but the album cover, if it hadn’t been done on a computer, would have looked like something Dio would have commissioned back in the ’80s. Well, there aren’t any demons, so the Dio crack isn’t really accurate. But it does remind me of a bad ’80s metal album cover. Then again, if you want an amazing album by one of America’s best industrial bands, this is it. Great dance floor industrial in the vein of Chemlab.
Still, I wonder where Metropolis gets the dough to sign every electronic act around. Jesus! If I get something industrial to review, nine out of ten times it’s from Metropolis. Not that I’m complaining, but I do find it strange. I’m getting a lot of great stuff lately, most of it from Metropolis, yet no one is coming around to my place to give me any payola. Fuck! Where’s my coke? Where’s my blowjob? Get hopping – I live in Vegas so these things should be cheap for them to get me. If they have the money to make a Front Line Assembly double remix CD, they have the money to get me a hooker. I can’t win.
A couple of years ago I had a real problem with my Metropolis mountain, namely that all the CDs I got from them sucked ass. As a result, all my reviews were bad and I got bitched out by the Metropolis publicity guy for writing those crummy reviews (it’s not my fault if an album sucks, I just try to make the review funny). Suddenly, last year, all the CDs I got from Metropolis were great. Being the honest guy I am, I gave those CDs good reviews. But where is that dick from Metropolis now? He’s not calling to thank me. I bet he’s quizzing another bored reviewer about the history of electronic music (Q: What was the first band to use sequenced rhythm patterns in their songs? Give up? A: Tangerine Dream. Q: Do you give a fuck? A: NO!).
Most reviewers don’t get paid for their efforts. As a result, it takes a really damn good album to get our juices flowing enough to put forth the effort to tell folks about it. We get a lot of shit for being jaded hacks who critique because we can’t do, and for the most part, that’s true. However, what is also true is that while the average musician is plagiarizing the David Bowie catalog, rearranging some Black Sabbath tunes, or confusing frat boy antics gone awry with being sensitive, we are laughing at their lame asses. America might be blinded by their manly swagger and fall for that schtick now, but wait ten years when MTV comes to your house to ask you about how stupid you looked, or to ask you how long it’s going to take for you to finish white-washing that huge-ass billboard. Who’ll be laughing then? Most of you guys have a cool that’s as fickle as a groupie, so get off your high horse and realize that we’re not coming backstage to slap the 15 year-old off your dick, we’re merely the Greek chorus foreshadowing your downfall. So all y’all keep on doing that rock thing you do and we’ll give you the honest opinion that none of your pallies will. When we like an album, I mean really like an album, we’ll tell the whole world. But if it sucks, we’re going to have some fun at your expense, so SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!
Kevorkian Death Cycle just made a great album. I’d buy it.
(PO Box 54307 Philadelphia, PA 19105)
